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Johnson, Samuel, 1709-1784

"The Adventurer; The Idler"

A gentleman, giving the history of
one of his acquaintance, made mention of a lady that had many lovers:
"Then," said Dick, "she was either handsome or rich." This observation
being well received, Dick watched the progress of the tale; and, hearing
of a man lost in a shipwreck, remarked, that "no man was ever drowned
upon dry land."
Will Startle is a man of exquisite sensibility, whose delicacy of frame
and quickness of discernment subject him to impressions from the
slightest causes; and who, therefore, passes his life between rapture
and horrour, in quiverings of delight, or convulsions of disgust. His
emotions are too violent for many words; his thoughts are always
discovered by exclamations. _Vile, odious, horrid, detestable_, and
_sweet, charming, delightful, astonishing_, compose almost his whole
vocabulary, which he utters with various contortions and gesticulations,
not easily related or described.
Jack Solid is a man of much reading, who utters nothing but quotations;
but having been, I suppose, too confident of his memory, he has for some
time neglected his books, and his stock grows every day more scanty.


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